


Goodnight Moon

by adjovi



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:29:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adjovi/pseuds/adjovi
Summary: Coda to 3X13 after the monster finds Quentin





	Goodnight Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fiction I have written in like 8 years...but was inspired by the Magician's S3 finale. Please be kind. :)

Brian was filled with a dread he didn’t completely understand and an urge to flee this strange man that was almost instinctual. Primal. Without knowing how, he knew that this man was _wrong_. Suddenly, without warning, the world listed to the side and went white, and they were impossibly transported to his small walk up, the man still clinging possessively to his arm. He staggered back a step, dropping the books but not freeing himself, but at least putting some distance. “What...how? How…are you doing this?” He glanced at his coffee, wondering if he had been drugged.

“Don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.” The man smiled at him, reminding Brian impossibly of a mischievous child. He looked around with a frown, and Brian followed his gaze. He dropped Brian’s arm and purposivefully made his way to the fridge. “Well. This is new.” He pulled down the picture of Brian and Naomi at Tom and Gretchen’s wedding with a snap. “Wrong.” He threw the photo down, contemptuously. He spun indicating the whole room around him. “All of this.”  


Brian listed back a few steps, eager to put more space between them, but the man closed the distance more quickly than should have been possible. “Please…take whatever you want. I don’t have much…”

The man giggled, grabbing his arm again. “I don’t want any of your things, silly. I just want you.” Brian looked around frantically, trying to figure out an escape. “They’ve hidden you.” The man tilted his head, searching his face “But, why?” He giggled again, shrugging. “Humans and their stupid little magic. I can fix this.” He stripped off Brian’s hat, throwing it to the floor, and placed a warm palm on Brian’s head. 

He felt a jolt go through him, with the intensity of a lightning strike. He jerked back, but the man held fast. He felt like his brain was splitting along the hemisphere. Everything was so fucking loud that it hurt. His legs felt weak, and he walked backwards, his knees hitting the coffee table and folding immediately into sitting. He was amazed the shitty particle board held his weight. All of it came crashing back at once, and he couldn’t stand the intensity. He began to weep involuntarily, rocked by the memories. ALL of it. His whole entire life. Growing up. His parents. Fillory. Julia. Brakebills. Magic was fucking _real_. Alice. Margo. Fuck. “Eliot.” His voice sounded like someone else’s, thick and slurred. He looked the monster full in the face. “What have you done with him?”

It smiled at him. The monster riding around in the Eliot meat suit. The eyes. That was what was so wrong. Fucking alien eyes. It smiled. “There you are.” Its voice was warm and full of affection. Quentin felt like he might vomit.

“ _Please_ …” he started. Cleared his voice. “Please? What have you done with him?”

It smiled again. “He’s fine.” It took a step towards Quentin, almost a skip. “He’s just…not in front anymore. For now.” It smiled at Quentin again, stroking his face. Quentin jerked back as if slapped, and the monster frowned, wounded. “I just want you to play with me. Will you play with me, Quentin?”

Quentin closed his eyes. “I need to know he is ok.” He swallowed thickly. "Please.”

The monster titled its head, regarding him. It giggled again. “Oh Q, I wouldn’t hurt him. Then how would we have any fun?”

Quentin felt a flood of relief wash over him, but still he needed to know. “ Let me talk to him. For only a minute?”

The monster frowned again, a dark look crossing its eyes. “No. Not possible.”

Quentin squared his jaw. “Then I don’t want to play.”

The monster squinted its eyes in anger, and Quentin felt like his veins were filled with ice water. “I could kill you, you know?” It made a casual slashing gesture with one hand and Quentin felt all of the air leave his lungs at once. He couldn’t bring his chest to draw another breath, the one thought surfacing that Ora had never actually told him what this thing could do. Apparently, a lot. “It is just that easy.” It smiled at him as Quentin fell to the ground, his vision graying along the edges. It giggled, slashing the air in the opposite direction with his hand, releasing him. Quentin coughed violently, trying to pull as much air back into his lungs as quickly as possible. “But, I want you to be my friend, Quentin.”

On the ground, Quentin rubbed at his throat, as if this would make the air come back faster. “Please,” he managed to croak out again. “I just need to know he is ok.”

The monster rolled his eyes, again reminding Quentin that it was, at its core, a child. “Fine. I can tell you something only Eliot would know.”

“Just let me talk to him.’ Quentin felt frantic, could hear the panic in his voice, but the need to know Eliot was still in there and ok was all consuming.

“NO. NONONONONO.” It was pacing around the room in a crazy eights pattern, long awkward arms flapping like it wasn’t quite sure how to use them. Quentin realized that if he had been himself, he would have known immediately this was not Eliot. Margo would be able to spot it a mile away. If she was still Margo, that was. “NO!” It spat the word out petulantly. 

Quentin sighed, resigned that his choices were limited and this was the best he was going to get. “Ok! Ok.” He tried in his most placating voice. “Ok. I just need to know he is still in there.”

The monster stopped, turning to look at Quentin. Studying him. It was...unnerving. Quentin sighed, feeling defeated. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but it was more than nothing. He sighed again. “Ok. Tell me something only Eliot would know.”

The monster smiled, pleased. “Then you will play with me?” Quentin nodded, wearily. The monster’s gaze shifted to the side, unfocused for a long beat. “Goodnight bears. Goodnight chairs.” Quentin squinted his eyes quizzically and shook his head once, trying to place this but failing. The monster smiled at him almost…tenderly, and continued on. “The book. His brother used to read to him every night before bed. The one he tried to remember for Teddy?”

Quentin felt something break apart high and tight in his chest, the memories washing over him like a dam breaking. _Fuck._ He held out a hand, a wordless entreaty to stop. It relentlessly continued. “He tried so hard to remember, to get every word right. But, he couldn’t get those two lines—he knew they were missing but just couldn’t remember what they were.” Quentin closed his eyes, remembering countless nights of finding Eliot crouched over the meager candlelight of their tiny cabin, trying again and again to scratch down every word to that fucking book so that he could perfectly recite it to their son. 

“As soon as he got back to earth, he bought the first copy he could find. And there it was. ‘Goodnight bears. Goodnight chairs.'” It gave Quentin an almost crooked smile and shrugged. “Of course, it was too late by that point. But still, he needed to know.”

Quentin covered his face with his hand, sobbing just the once, pulling in a deep, steadying breath. He blinked rapidly a few times and looked up at the monster. This was his quest. He sighed audibly once more. “Ok…ok.” He cleared his throat. “I am ready to play.”


End file.
